The future of this forum

Beasty · 26-05-2016 11:33pm #1

We have been undertaking a review of a number of Sports forums and Frisbee has been identified as one for potential closure.

Before doing so we wanted to give any viewers (as there are clearly no "regulars" currently contributing to the forum) the opportunity to comment.

I will try and deal with any questions in connection with this proposal, and geroidof can of course chip in as they see fit

In terms of where people should post in connection with Frisbee going forward I would propose any discussion could take place in the General Sports forum unless anyone believes there is another forum that could cater for such discussion.

john the one · 26-05-2016 11:35pm

Awwww I love this forum!

Edward Hopper · 26-05-2016 11:45pm

What harm do this and the other quiet sports forums do?

Is it a strain on resources? I can't see much of a downside for having these forums, even if they are more or less dead. They are place holders for if and when sports become more popular again. It's not arduous to scroll past them in the lists of sports is it?

Someone Googles Frisbee Ireland, they get the boards link, have a look, dead or not, they might think I'll just check out this bargain alert thread or (God forbid) the reality tv forum etc etc etc. Just leave them alone as loss leaders.

Oh and Beasty reported for cross forum spamming of the same message

Beasty · 26-05-2016 11:56pm

The forums are dead. They (unlike others, and I would credit someone like yourself for this in Rugby League Edward - FYI that's not on my "list"!!) have absolutely no sense of community. We have a mod who has posted once on the site over the past year. We need someone to generate content.

I started this thread to gauge interest on maintaining the forum. If posters actually want to discuss the underlying topic then great, but there is no current evidence of that. Before today this forum had 5 posts over the past 2 years.

Hence we (well specifically I) have been looking at how we consolidate some of this stuff

General Sports is the obvious place to direct discussion. An alternative would be to combine similar sports, although I'm not seeing a likelihood of gathering enough critical mass to get a forum that would accommodate something like Frisbee and anything else that could generate relevant discussion

Beasty · 26-05-2016 11:58pm

Edward Hopper wrote: »

Oh and Beasty reported for cross forum spamming of the same message

Not all the words are the same - in fact I put a lot of effort into adjusting my copying and pasting accordingly;)

Edward Hopper · 27-05-2016 9:03am

First they came for Frisbee and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Frisbee-er..............

Hasn't been a flood of frisbee-ers coming in I'll admit! If it does get moved maybe general sport will become busier as a result.

Still don't quite see what harm they do though, and while Rugby League isn't in danger now, when these sports drop off the list, it becomes one of the less active sports forums (I presume), falls to the bottom of the list and becomes the next target in the purge in a year or two if boards is still chugging along.

We'll be left with about half a dozen sports and a massive general sports forum with people complaining about megathreads (because people are always complaining about megathreads!)

/over dramatics! (think I may be tired and emotional and I know really that the sport cat mods will do what's best for sports category, just worry the powers that be want AH and a few other forums and that's it)

Apologies, taking it off subject of frisbee again.

The official website for Irish Frisbee (as found in this forums getting started thread) is actually very good and maybe reaching out to them might generate a boost in traffic or, maybe a dead horse can only be flogged for so long.

So I think I've descended into rambling as most of my posts seem to do. But a least Frisbee has had a big surge in traffic for a while. Now into free running and bowling (an amalgamation of those sports could be awesome, and slightly dangerous!).

Beasty · 27-05-2016 9:45am

TBH I don't mind if one of these threads takes off on the wider principles of what I have suggested. That way we can at least have some proper discussion and a more "informed" decision can result

TBH, if we were starting afresh I would have a much higher threshhold for requesting individua, forums, and something like RL may never have seen the light of day

This though is largely something I have initiated. Partly it's because we have a number of inactive mods and the forums have little if any direction. Having said that they don't need direction if no-one is posting. Just means I have another half a dozen forums I end up keeping my eye on for spammers and the like. I don't mind overly, but I do think the Sports category has got a bit bloated. Yes when we set up Roller Derby a few years ago there was a spurt of activity, but the forum's now dead. It may come to life if we had a mod that knows something about it (which was originally the case), but as you know we expect mods to at least show a decent level of activity and pretty much no-one posting there ever did that

Having said all that, as I've already said I welcome any discussion anywhere (relevant!) on this

There is, I would re-iterate, no intention to move into forums where we are seeing activity. If RL only had 2 or 3 posts over a couple of years you may tempt me to make it a sub-forum of Rugby:p

Edward Hopper · 27-05-2016 10:06am

Beasty wrote: »

There is, I would re-iterate, no intention to move into forums where we are seeing activity. If RL only had 2 or 3 posts over a couple of years you may tempt me to make it a sub-forum of Rugby:p

Blasphemy!

For everything else, fair enough. Appreciate you bothering to respond to my posts.

P.S. I'm going to donate a wad to SSF this year if they make Union a sub forum of League for a while! Imagine .ak would love that!

Beasty · 27-05-2016 12:39pm

Also thinking about merging Cricket into Croquet - sound close enough anyway....

:pac:

Beasty · 31-05-2016 8:56am

I'll copy something I've just posted in Bowling here for consideration/discussion (as these 2 forums seem to be the only ones with anyone engaging)

One alternative that I've recently broached with the Admins is to have a single forum within Sports holding all these inactive forums. That may allow us to continue allowing posts as in practice we then only need a couple of mods in the "parent" forum who could keep an eye on them all

That would seem to deliver the best of both worlds

Thoughts?

Beasty · 09-07-2017 3:10pm

I'm looking to move this forward, and have been discussing it with the other Admins

So here's what we are proposing:

1. We will proceed to close the Sports forums I earmarked last year. At the same time we are proposing to introduce tagging within the General Sports forum, although unless someone shows an interest in discussing Frisbee I don't think it actually warrants a separate tag.
2. We will add tags for sports that are already actively discussed in General Sports, such as the Olympics and Winter Olympics
3. If there are any active threads in the forums that are being closed we will transfer them to General Sports
4. There are one or two other sports that may benefit from tagging under "umbrella" titles (such as some of the Racquet sports) - equally they may attract more traffic if tagged within General Sports. I'll start discussions in some of those forums to gauge support for alternative options

If anyone who posts here has any further comments about these proposals I am happy to listen and discuss as appropriate.

Thanks

Beasty · 29-09-2017 3:23pm

OK, just to let you all know I'll be closing this forum to new posts over the weekend

The future of this forum

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